Assistance dogs Australia is a national charity which trains Labradors and Golden Retrievers to help people with disabilities, providing them with greater freedom and independence.

These photos were taken at this years Sydney Graduation ceremony in Martin Place – where the pups were handed over from their ‘puppy raiser’ to their intended recipient 🙂

What a wonderful event it was. The fabulous Tim McCallum was the MC for the event and sang some beautiful songs that really tied the event together – there wasn’t a dry eye in the house – including mine…

Thanks for all you do Assistance Dogs Australia. I LOVE being around the dogs and am so grateful to be a part of your team

It’s been quite a while since I’ve written a post. Life has been so, so busy. My husband and I have had a sea change! We’ve moved out of Sydney down to the Illawarra and are living right by the sea!! It is quite simply, the best thing we’ve ever done 🙂

On Tuesday I was up in Sydney conducting a night photography tour and took this black and white photo of the Opera House and city from Kirribilli on the northern side of the Harbour.

I stood and stared at this scene before I took the shot. The Opera House gets me every time – especially at night – it is just such an architectural masterpiece:)

For those of you who are photographers – this shot was taken on my new Canon 5d Mark IV and the 24-105mm L series lens. The settings were ISO 400, F18, 25 sec.

What do you think of the shot in black and white? I’d love to hear your comments below:)

Do you remember my last blog post about my friend LISA FOLINO the FINE ART photographer? Lisa has been given an incredible opportunity to exhibit her work at the largest international art platform, The 2017 Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy.

We have been running a crowdfunding campaign on Hatchfund to help Lisa realise her lifelong dream.

We are in the final stages of the campaign and at this time, Lisa hasn’t met her goal. 😦 It takes a lot to ask a friend or acquaintance for help, but I really want to help Lisa make this journey to Venice – so I’m going to ask anyway 🙂

We are holding a raffle – tickets are $10 each – and you can purchase as many as you want. If we sell a minimum of 200 tickets, someone will be chosen to win one of Lisa’s prints.

Just imagine – you could have one of these awesome pieces of fine art photography in YOUR home!!!

I do love a road trip. Especially when it’s with 3 other photography buddies who love doing what I love doing – taking photos – lots of photos:)

We specifically went to visit the Mayfield Garden in Oberon, NSW Australia. We decided to stay overnight in Lithgow before visiting the gardens and explore the surrounding areas of Sodwalls and Tarana.

The countryside around Lithgow is beautiful. We found old school houses, beautiful flowers, rural scenes, Tarana railway station and even a church. There is something so nourishing about being in the bush and being able to stop whenever you feel like it because you’ve ‘seen’ a photo or a scene that you’d like to explore.

We had such a fun day which was finished off by a visit to the Lithgow blast furnace. The remains of the pump house and furnace foundations gave us plenty of fabulous photographic opportunities. We stayed until the mozzies threatened to carry us off 🙂

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The second day we hit the road early bound for the Mayfield Garden in Oberon.

What a fantastic, well maintained garden paradise this is – I would thoroughly recommend a visit.

The gardens are split up into different themes and all of them are breathtaking. For those that don’t know me, colour and flowers bring me to life…so you could pretty much say I was one very happy photographer!

There were many varieties of beautiful flowers bursting with colour, a lake, waterfalls, bridges and lots of greenery all surrounded by wide open spaces.

We ate lunch at the cafe which had a beautiful atmosphere and delicious food. The vegetables in our zucchini fritters were picked from the Mayfield kitchen garden.

What more could you want?

Thanks to my buddies Judy, Lorraine and Sonia – lets do it again soon 🙂

Last weekend I was given the most amazing opportunity – to explore the abandoned tunnels beneath Sydney’s St. James Railway Station.

Every year, as part of ‘Sydney Open’, tours are conducted in these tunnels. There is one catch though – you can’t pay for it – you have to win it – either by a ticket ballot or answering a question on one of Sydney’s radio stations.

I was pretty happy when I received an email saying I’d won a ticket!

So, first of all let me tell you a bit of history about the tunnels – I learnt all of this information from the passionate ‘City Rail Historian’ who conducted our tour.

The extensive network of disused platforms and tunnels {which have always been hidden from the public and never been used} were built in the 1920s for proposed rail lines to the Eastern Suburbs of Bondi and Randwick. The outbreak of World War 11 and the Great Depression meant these plans had to be shelved.

During the war, the tunnels were modified into air raid shelters to be used if the city was ever under attack. They had the capacity to hold up to 20,000 people. The RAAF used the tunnels as their ‘Air Defence Headquarters’, four stories below the streets where they used morse code and studied aviation maps to co-ordinate air traffic and ships.

After the war, the RAAF was asked to bury the shelters. This job was never completed. As the tunnels were constructed from solid earth and meshed concrete – they were incredibly hard to dismantle….Once the order was given to ‘stop work’ the workmen literally downed their tools and walked out.

We entered the tunnels through a very ordinary looking green door at the end of the platform at St. James Station ~ {think Harry Potter ~ platform 9 3/4 style.}

Immediately I was in photography heaven…I loved the disused platforms…they were completely intact and I thought about the people working on them nearly 100 years ago.

You all know me, my camera was clicking crazily…..this opportunity doesn’t come along every day:)

The tiles from the disused tunnels are used to replace broken tiles in the main area of St. James Station.

We then set off through the water into the huge open chambers…it was fabulous ~ walking along in my gumboots, taking shots and hearing all about this ‘other world’ beneath the city.

The tunnels have had other uses over time ~ scenes from the TV show ‘PoliceRescue’ and the film ‘The Matrix’ were filmed down here. City Rail also practise their emergency procedures here and the Army use the tunnels for military exercises.

Even seances were reputedly performed down in these tunnels ~ yes seances….All pretty interesting huh?

The spot where the sceances are reputedly performed.

During the war, many soldiers who were working in the tunnels, left messages on the walls to their loved ones. Perhaps they weren’t sure if they would see their families and loved ones again or maybe they just wanted to sign their name to remind future generations who they were.

The best sign of all was the air raid shelter sign ~ ‘PUBLIC AIR RAID SHELTER’ WARNING: NO PERSON IS ALLOWED IN THIS SHELTER EXCEPT DURING AN AIR RAID.

Something that really amazed me, was the tree roots. They were everywhere. Even thick concrete and solid earth couldn’t stop them. They were growing out of holes in the concrete, snaking their way through the tunnels ~ twisting and turning, searching for water…

But it was the details I loved the most ~ light battens on the ceiling, light bulbs, buckets and other traces of human life in the tunnels.

I feel very grateful to have seen this interesting part of underground Sydney.

Thank you to City Rail for such an wonderful, interesting tour…My camera and I won’t forget it 🙂

till next time,

Chris 🙂

P.s. For all the photographers out there…I never used a tripod, I steadied the camera where I could and used extremely high ISO’s to get a decent shutter speed 🙂